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Show 50 CREMATION MYTHS. " The moon and the coyote wrought together in creating all things that exist. The moon was good, but the coyote was bad. In making men and women the moon wished to so fashion their souls that when they died they should return to the earth after two or three days, as he himself does when he dies. But the coyote was evil disposed, and said this should not be, but that when men died their friends should burn their bodies, and once a year make a great mourning for them; and the coyote prevailed. So, presently when a deer died, they burned his body, as the coyote had decreed, and after a year they made a great mourning for him. But the moon created the rattlesnake and caused it to bite the coyote's son, so that he died. Now, though the coyote had been willing to burn the deer's relations, he refused to burn his own son. Then the moon said unto him, ' This is your own rale. You would have it so, and now your son shall be burned like the others.' So he was burned, and after a year the coyote mourned for him. Thus the law was established over the coyote also, and, as he had dominion over men, it prevailed over men likewise. " This story is utterly worthless for itself, but it has its value in that it shows there was a time when the California Indians did not practice cremation, which is also established by other traditions. It hints at the additional fact that the Nishinams to this day set great store by the moon ; consider it their benefactor in a hundred ways, and observe its changes for a hundred purposes." Another myth regarding cremation is given by Adam Johnston, in Schoolcraft,* and relates to the Bonaks, or root- diggers: " The first Indians that lived were coyotes. When one of their number died the body became full of little animals or spirits, as they thought them. After crawling over the body for a time they took all manner of shapes, some that of the deer, others the elk, antelope, etc. It was discovered, however, that great numbers were taking wings, and for a while they sailed about in the air, but eventually they would fly off to the moon. The old coyotes or Indians, fearing the earth might become depopulated in this way, concluded to stop it at once, and ordered that when one of their people died * Hist. Indian tribes of the United States, 1854, part IV, p. 224. |
